Writing & Research Tools

To add to my mostly Mac OS X based list of writing tools -
Bean: An OS X Word Processor.

(Oh, and I think I left NeoOffice (based on OpenOffice) off the original list too.)

A while back I wrote an increasingly long list of (predominantly Mac-based) writing tools - Greenflame · Thinking about writing tools.

Fernando has recently written some more on than theme and on one of those tools (Scrivener), including some comments on how it helps manage his writing processes. See Fernando’s Desk » Getting It Down On Screen.

A selection of links that intersect around the role of new media in educational environments. Henry Jenkins has an essay (in two parts) that looks at the tension between participatory media and traditional educational models, and in particular emphasises the critical application of the following skill set:

1. Collective Intelligence — the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others towards a common goal.
2. Judgment — the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information source.
3. Networking — the ability to search for, synthesize and disseminate information.
4. Negotiation — the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative sets of norms.

See:

• Confessions of an Aca/Fan: The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins: WHAT WIKIPEDIA CAN TEACH US ABOUT THE NEW MEDIA LITERACIES (PART ONE)
• Confessions of an Aca/Fan: The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins: WHAT WIKIPEDIA CAN TEACH US ABOUT THE NEW MEDIA LITERACIES (PART TWO)

Connected to this, is Mary Hess’ post about a review of her book on theological education promoting this type of critical engagement with new media by teachers and students. See:

• Tensegrities » Struggling to respond… and Tensegrities » A response to a review
• Tensegrities » Teaching/learning in theological education

Then AKMA has this post on reflecting on a meeting to discuss related matters - AKMA’s Random Thoughts - Retrospect and Prospect.

And then Tim chimes in with this post (connected to AKMA’s) - SansBlogue: Bible, Babel and Web 2.0. (Some long comments there - including some from Mark which he refers to here: E-BCNZer: Brighouse - “On Education”).

The integration of digital technologies, with existing pedagogues and technologies, will be here for a while yet. I know that I’ve found it frustrating as both a student and teacher that the roles I’m being trained for/are training people for are collaborative - they stand or fall based upon healthy, dynamic relationships (both in IT and religion) - and yet the systems promote individualism (for assessment particularly) and work to stamp out collaborative efforts (it’s called cheating). Intellectual property discussions (esp. academic ones) also connect here. There must be a better way.

AKMA has some gentle reminders about the need for typographical simplicity when selecting typefaces, and has some helpful links to some related typeface resources. See AKMA’s Random Thoughts: Type Trove.

Over the years I’ve used lots of different text and word processors to support writing I’ve needed to do:

• nroff and similar on UNIX systems for writing documentation
• View on the BBC Microcomputer in the 1980s
• Something on an Apple II+ which only displayed 40 characters per line
• WordStar, MS Word and WordPerfect under MS-DOS (pre-Windows)
• Nisus and MacWrite on my Mac Plus and Mac LC to write my Masters thesis
• MS Word 2.0, Word 95, Word 97 and Word 2003 on various Windows computers.
• MS Word 3, 4 and 5 and ClarisWorks on my Apple Powerbook 150 and 520c and PowerMac 6100 (Still have a set of Word 5 install floppies somewhere)
• AppleWorks and MS Word v.X on the Mac OS X G3 iBook (the latter for the PhD thesis)

Of all of these, MS Word 5 on the PB150 and PB520c offered the best system for just blatting out text without getting distracted by the bells and whistles of the software. The black-and-white display and keyboard of the PB150 seemed to work for me, plus with no internet connection etc. I only turned it on to write. Word v.X was okay (and it supported EndNote) but it didn’t really inspire me to write.

Now with the thesis all written up I’m wondering whether it’s time to look at trying some different things to aid the writing process in the next few months. Some tools that help organize the writing process as much as just allowing text entry and formatting. I’d like them to run on the iBook (which won’t be replaced in the near future) and to have some support if possible for bibliographic data. MS Word compatibility is less of an issue as I still have Word v.X and Word 2003.

From looking around the net these links look helpful.

Applications that help with note-taking and organising writing material

• Note Taking Application Faceoff at The Apple Blog
• Literature and Latte - Scrivener - looks really interesting
• Mellel, which looks good for academic writing and support for non-English languages
• Journler - Wherever Life Takes You
• mekentosj.com | Introducing Papers… Your personal library of science

Bibliographic support

• Bookends, reference and bibliography software for Macintosh
• Third Street Software - Sente
• I’ve used EndNote and avoided much of the grief others I know have had with it, so that’s still a possibility. It’s integration with non-Word word processors remains an issue though.

Some articles about Mac word processing

• Mac360 - Why The Mac Is The Ultimate Writers Tool Box.
• Mac360 - Is This The Best Word Processor For Real Writing?

I wouldn’t be adverse to a Windows XP/Vista word processor and material organizer though, if they did the job. Just don’t have a Windows laptop to run it on.

Anyway, now feels like a good time to try something new, before I get caught up in not being able to change while projects are ongoing.

Updates

• For Windows users then perhaps PageFour - Software for writers - novel outliner and tabbed word processor might do the task (thanks to Bill for the link)
• Mac OPML Editor for building outlines
• Acta, the classic outliner - available free and runs under MacOS Classic and earlier. (I used it extensively to write the Masters thesis back in 1990)
• Son of Acta - Opal: Easy notes and organizing for Mac OS X 10.4. See also Opal is the new Acta - O’Reilly Mac DevCenter Blog
• Outlining should also include consideration of The Omni Group - Applications - OmniOutliner
• I’ve also played with Inspiration - a mind-mapping tool of sorts. Useful for visual learners like me, who love to diagram ideas.
• DEVONthink
• Sidenote
• Notational Velocity - minimalist notetaker
• SOHO Notes
• Dan Schimpf Software: MacJournal
• Bartas Technologies - CopyWrite
• Flying Meat: VoodooPad
• Mori - Productivity Tools
• Sebastian Krauß / Software - My Mind

Jo pointed to this article about Google Books. Food for thought.

American Historical Association Blog: Google Books: What’s Not to Like?

Does anyone know if Sente from Third Street Software is any good for managing bibliographic data and handling citations in word processing documents. I’m currently locked into the MS Word/Endnote system, but I wouldn’t mind having the option to try out Mellel for academic writing (which Sente supports as well as Word).

I picked it up here at Faith and Theology: Footnotes or endnotes? but it started here at Frankly, Mr Shankly: TF Torrance, footnotes and endnotes. Then it evolved to here to Aaron Ghiloni’s poll pointed to by Faith and Theology: The footnote controversy.

At the end of the day - “Endnotes - just say no!”

Having returned from holiday with more books (see Greenflame: Back from holiday (with books)) we all went out a few days back to one of the local secondhand bookshops with a box of books to exchange. A successful trip with all 6 of us finding something amongst the volumes. To my delight I picked up a copy of Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days by a favourite author of mine, Alastair Reynolds.

Reynold’s ‘Revelation Space’ explores, among other things, how human society might shape itself with different responses to technology interfacing with the human body. As such it is a good example of transhumanism in fiction. Wikipedia has an article on transhumanist fiction as a genre, including links through to some works that are available for download.

I see that EndNote now has a basic style for SBL which would have saved me grief a while back. Only problem I’d need to upgrade EndNote to a new version that requires a G4 as minimum. The poor old G3 iBook doesn’t make the cut even though it word processes just fine with EndNote 7. I’d really like an EndNote style for McIntosh too - anyone (Australians?) know of one?

One thing that really annoys me about EndNote 7 (I don’t know about later versions) is it’s handling of (book) reviews as a entry type is non-existent (or I just can’t see it).

Nice summary of a talk given on the influence of Google (and like) upon the identification of critical and helpful knowledge, particularly within the academic world, over at planet telex » Blog Archive » The University of Google - Speed Searching and the Killing of Knowledge. A problem that I come across regularly when marking essays. Seems that the essay question is typed into Google and the first few web sites retrieved crop up in several essays. Darren cites a list of criteria that the speaker, Tara Brabazon, gives to students to constructively educate them in using sources like Google. These include:

• Who authored the document?
• What expertise does the author have?
• What evidence is provided?
• What genre is the document, is it a journal piece, academic paper, polemic or a blog post?
• Is the site funded by an institution?

I talk about the use of internet/electronic resources to students whenever I teach but on the whole it doesn’t seem to have that much affect upon a significant minority. Even citing Internet resources is poorly done. Now however, I think I’ll develop a more constructive strategy.

See also: Greenflame: Google Sociology.

Journal article requires citation format that isn’t one of the myriad available for EndNote. So rather than do it all by hand - and possibly botch something up - I’m going to attempt to create my first EndNote output style. Figure the time invested will be repaid if I ever have to write another article for this style.

AKMA : You want this points to the free CityULike service for organising references and citations online, as well as forming virtual communities around research interests. The experimental import from BibTex format looks helpful as does the ability to set up watch lists on various journals.

I spent a large chunk of today checking some of my footnotes in the section I wrote 18 months ago on the theological interpretation of the image and likeness of God in Christian history. All fine until my footnote for a reference to Justin Martyr arguing that the human body was valuable in God’s sight was incomplete - Lost Fragments should have read Fragments of the Lost Work of Justin on the Resurrection. Erk. Spent a while skimming Lost Fragments wondering what I was on when I wrote that part.

Somewhat ironically, for the missing reference speaks of a rejection of those who would spurn the earthly life, the answer was found on the internet. Incarnational, embodied reference found excarnationally. Here’s the source I used to find it: www.earlychristianwritings.com/. Tomorrow I’ll go to the library and haul out a paper tome to peer at.